Game of Thrones Star Liam Cunningham Shoots Down That Awful Sansa Pregnancy Theory

Given that Game of Thrones is no longer following every turn of George R. R. Martin’sA Song of Ice and Fire books, the tendency for wild fan theorizing has grown exponentially in Season 6. But while some of the theories are fun and harmless (Hodor is a horse!), others have more damaging, far-reaching implications. The most egregious example this season? “Sansa is pregnant with Ramsay’s rape baby.” Now, at last, someone involved on the show has shot it down.

The theory first picked up heat in February, when some fans claimed that a Season 6 publicity still (used above) showed Sophie Turner looking a little thicker in the middle than usual. Rather than chalking this up to her layers of winter wear, they immediately wondered if she might be carrying Ramsay’s baby. As the season progressed, they found more cause for alarm. Sansa wasn’t eating the disgusting food at the Wall! Sansa made herself a new dress! And, most frustratingly at all, they interpreted Sansa’s harrowing description of post-rape trauma in the most literal way possible: “I can still feel it. I don’t mean ‘in my tender heart, it still pains me so.’ I can still feel what he did, in my body, standing here, right now.”

Ramsay’s taunting of Sansa in last Sunday’s episode—“You can’t kill me, I’m part of you now”—only seemed to serve as more proof of her supposed pregnancy. Unless you believe that the viewers who believe in this theory are grasping at straws—as Liam Cunningham does.

“Unless he’s got one of those Game of Thrones pregnancy sticks, he’s not gonna know,” Cunningham, who plays Davos, told the Huffington Post. “I think, I would imagine, it’s open to whatever you want it to be, but I think he’s saying he’s put himself into her head. That’s what I took from it. She’s never gonna get rid of him because of what he’s done to her. He knows what he’s done to her. It was off camera, what he was doing to her, but we all know what it was. But I think he’s placed himself in her soul for all the wrong reasons.”

You don’t have to take Davos’s word for it. Let’s apply a little logic: at the end of Season 5, Sansa took a huge tumble from the walls of Winterfell, then plunged her traumatized body into an icy Northern river. Let’s say a fetus did survive that. Even accounting for the sped-up travel time on the show, it’s now been months since Theon left her side. (It takes a long time to travel from Winterfell to the Iron Islands to Volantis to Meereen. Here’s a map; see for yourself.) Even if she’s a late shower, after all this time, she would certainly know if she were pregnant. And, given Sansa’s boiling hatred for Ramsay, I’m pretty sure she would have availed herself of the Westerosi version of the morning-after pill: Moon Tea. But if, despite all that, Sansa were still pregnant, would she lie about it, telling Ramsay, “Your words will disappear. Your House will disappear. Your name will disappear. All memory of you will disappear?” Maybe. But maybe we could also take this rape survivor at her word.

This theory has been a particular thorn in my side all season, chiefly because of its origins: the critical scrutinizing of a then-teenaged actress’s body. But, as Roth Cornet of HitFix pointed out earlier this week, the Sansa pregnancy theory also undercuts the story of psychological trauma Game of Thrones is trying to tell. To assume that Sansa and Ramsay could only be talking about a literal, physical product of rape rather than lingering emotional and spiritual damage is to undermine what it means to be a rape survivor. To assume that pregnancy is the only way a woman could still feel the effects of rape is even more egregious.

So now that Davos has indicated it’s not true, can we put this terrible, frankly sexist, theory to bed? Awful things happen to the Starks all the time on Game of Thrones. But this? This, thankfully, isn’t one of them.